The first month of the New Year has flown by and the frost of February has arrived. As winter is now upon us the gardens and trees of the surrounding valleys and mountains of the Château have fallen asleep beneath winter's soft and snowy blanket. Snowflakes fall gently outside and the mornings are filled with mist and mystery as the kitchen remains a refuge for the animals from the cold of the day...
The winter weather means that it is often necessary to spend long days beside the warmth of the fire. And so amongst the stillness of winter, we thought to take a moment to sit and write to you by the soft glow of candlelight, sharing the progress as we have made working away inside the Château in the attic this year.
Since the wedding, and following some much needed time to rest and recover, we have been slowly working away in the attic space at the back of the Château, in the Medieval and Renaissance part of the building. Creating walls, installing doors and staircases, repairing plasterwork and staining beams to make these spaces comfortable. This is still in progress but we hope to continue working away in the attic spaces throughout the year so that another section of the Château will soon be finished.
After several weeks, the plasterwork around the two rooms has been completely repaired. For the moment, we are planning to keep the walls natural. We have also laid the flooring for the kitchen and bathroom area - simple distressed wooden look floorboards which are light enough to be laid on top of the flooring already there...
In the other areas of the room carpet will provide soundproofing for downstairs. And so, carpet was ordered but has taken quite some time to arrive! Hopefully, when it arrives the carpet will be quickly laid to give the space more warmth and a welcoming and cosy feeling. Fittings and furnishings were ordered and wait to dress the room once the carpet has been installed. To finish the space we are just waiting on the plumber and electrician. We are planning to create a small kitchenette hidden in an old armoire and powder room set behind a wooden bookcase...
We are even preparing the space for a television and reverse cycle air conditioning, as the room become very warm in the summer.
Quel luxe after so many years without electricity and heating!
As everything is ready for the carpet, electrician and plumber to arrive, in the meantime (and having being inspired by the work) we have now turned our attention to working on another of the many attic spaces in the front of the castle in the neoclassical part of the building. We began by installing a door leading to this part of the attic. For this we repurposed a set of French windows that we had on hand...
Previously, the staircase leading to this section of the attic had been left open in a bedroom. So far we had only added some plasterboard around it to keep it sectioned off and safe. And so, our next idea was to line the plasterboard walls leading to attic with wooden boards...
This is all the progress to share so far but it is quite a large amount of work considering we only started just a few short weeks ago! We are planning to continue in this section over the next month and look forward to sharing more progress in the attic rooms soon. À très bientôt!
